


Not Damaged

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Thursday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-06 21:43:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11044929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: After the press conference, Blair takes his things home from Rainier





	Not Damaged

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sentinel Thursday prompt 'copper'
> 
> Some of the dialogue is from the episode TSbyBS, or slightly adapted

Not Damaged

  
by Bluewolf

  
Although he had never submitted his sentinel dissertation to Rainier, although he had officially notified Rainier of a change of subject from it to the work of the police, Blair - knowing how Chancellor Edwards would react to his statement that the sentinel diss was fraudulent - had already cleared his 'office' in the morning before he gave his press conference in the afternoon. As Edwards followed him out, snarling, "I want your office cleared by Friday!" Blair knew that this was his last day at Rainier. He would not have to go back. But, he reflected, although it had broken his heart to dismiss Jim's sensory gift, leaving Rainier for good was no hardship.

  
As he drove home he considered the boxes packed in the trunk and on the back seat.

  
He would have to go through them - he had simply pushed everything that was on the shelves he had cleared for his own use, on the desk and in the drawers of that desk, into boxes, without taking time to check anything. But he knew that much of what he was taking back to the loft would no longer be of any use to him, and could be dumped. He was fairly certain that he had left behind all of the blue books he had been grading - if by any chance he did have any in one of those boxes, he could send them back. The post office was a very useful resource for doing that!

  
***

  
At 852 Prospect he carried the boxes in, one by one, and stacked them beside the elevator. He locked the car, lifted the last box, and went back into the building, called the elevator, loaded everything into it, and went up to the third floor, were he ferried the boxes to the door of apartment 307. He unlocked the door, took the boxes into his room, then relocked the door and went out, headed for the hospital - he was worried about Simon and Megan.

  
At the hospital he managed to speak to a doctor and get some information. On his way out - knowing he wouldn't be allowed to see either one until at least the next day - he met Jim coming in.

  
"Hey," he said, knowing exactly why Jim was there. "The doc said the surgery went well and the bullet missed major organs on both of them. They can leave in about a week or so."

  
"Thank God," Jim muttered. He was silent for a moment, then said, "I saw your press conference."

  
"Oh, you saw it? It was just a book."

  
"It was your life," Jim said quietly.

  
"Well... I suppose so. But really, all it was about was me following you around for three years pretending I was a cop."

  
"This self-deprecation don't suit you, you know. You might have been just an observer, but you were the best cop I've ever met and the best partner I could have ever asked for. You've been a great friend and you've pulled me through some pretty weird stuff."

  
Blair looked at him. That was a reaction he had never expected - especially after Jim's initial annoyance over being outed.

  
Jim took a deep breath. "We've still got work to do. Are you ready to get busy?"

  
They left the hospital side by side. There was still Zeller to deal with.

  
***

  
It was getting late when they finally got home, stopping on the way to pick up Chinese for dinner - Naomi had gone to visit a friend, and planned to stay there overnight. After eating, Blair make his way to his room. "I've got some things to sort out," he said as he went.  
He wasn't surprised, two or three minutes later, when Jim joined him. "Anything I can do to help?"

  
Blair indicated the boxes piled in front of the fire door. "I need to go through these, and fast - you're not supposed to block a fire door. A lot of it can be dumped, though."

  
"Well, easy to fix that in the short term. Let's get the boxes into the living room. Then you can take your time to make sure you don't accidentally dump anything important."

  
"It's mostly my teaching stuff from Rainier," Blair muttered. "And after my press conference - I doubt there's much there that'll ever be of any use to me."

  
Jim glanced at him, but said nothing. He opened one of the boxes and lifted its contents out - sheets of paper, many stapled together; Blair started looking through the papers.

  
He put the first bundle of stapled sheets down on the coffee table after a cursory glance down the first page. It was quickly followed by another and another.

  
"What are those?" Jim asked.

  
"Lesson plans. Not something I'm ever likely to need again."

  
Jim began to pack the discarded sheets of paper into the box.

  
Blair kept nothing from that box.

  
The next two were the same. One box of prepared lectures, and one of "Articles I've already submitted and had published. I can't think why I actually kept copies, once they were printed."

  
The next box looked different. It was smoke-stained, and Blair opened it more carefully.

"What's that?" Jim asked again.

  
"It came from the warehouse, after I was allowed in again the day after the fire. Souvenirs of expeditions. I just kept them in this box - well, I didn't really have anywhere in the warehouse to display them properly, and while I did have some of my things here, it was all stuff that I sometimes used to illustrate lectures. I... I just took this to Rainier, and I never went through it to see what the damage was. I was afraid nothing was salvageable, and - well, I didn't want to confirm that. But it's time to let go of anything that's too badly damaged... " He began to lift small items out of the box, looking more and more cheerful as object after object proved to be undamaged.

  
After several items, he pulled out a piece of knobbly green stone, and turned it over. One side was broken where it had clearly been sheared off bedrock; and rather than being self-colored, it was patterned in rings of different shades of green, rather like agate - except for the color.

  
"That's beautiful!" Jim said. "What is it?"

  
"Malachite," Blair replied. "It's a copper carbonate. I actually picked this up in Arizona, very near the Mexican border, when I was fourteen. Actually, I might even have been in Mexico... We were exploring part of the Sonora Desert, and Naomi never has been one to consider country boundaries particularly important. There's a lot of copper down there, a lot of it on the Mexican side. Anyway, I saw this lying under a rock outcrop - some of the stone of the outcrop was green, so I suppose it was all malachite, or coated with malachite. Anyway, even at that age I thought it was lovely, so I kept it. It's one of the very few things I have that's got no real significance... This, for example - " he lifted a small carved wolf out of the box - "was given to me by a Yuma shaman. All he said was that this was an animal that would have importance in my life. And, well, I know now it's my spirit animal." He ran a gentle finger down its back, put it down and returned his attention to checking more of the things in the box.

  
Jim picked up the wolf and the malachite, made a space on the bookshelf and put both items there, then went back to see how he could continue helping Blair.

 


End file.
